John Lydon Quotes

I don't understand the art of compromise, and it's a shame the politicians don't understand that as well, you know, we might have a better, clearer world. But then saying that, we might also get a lot of Donald Trump's running left right and centre.

I do use my music to entertain myself, as indeed I use other people's music.

I'm 100% proud of the TV work I achieved. The work I did on shows on insects and Great White sharks... stuff that's in school curriculums in England. Now they are showing up on Discovery Channel.

My reputation is a media creation.

Some of us are born big-minded with small penises. Others have big penises and small-minded.

Love is two minutes and fifty-two seconds of squishy sounds.

Over the years, during television interviews, whenever the host or the reviewer or whoever gets cynical and nasty with me, I will behave accordingly. I will defend myself.

I think national pride leads to nothing but wars and hate.

I nearly die of fear before I go on stage. Something wicked. I can't eat a thing the day before a gig.

I've had great pleasure meeting the likes of Newt Gingrich and having a chat with the fellow on a staircase. I found him completely dishonest and totally likeable, because he doesn't care! He knows what a politician is, and he's a perfect embodiment of one.

I always find the mirror in the dressing room is where the best artists are.

Being born into the Royal Family is like being born into a mental asylum. Marrying into it is not something to be taken lightly.

I love boating - not flash, 'noisy go fast' nonsense, but the general relaxation of it. My wife and I love to get in our little Wellcraft and go as far out to sea as we can, hopefully beyond land. That is the best thing you can ever do. It clears your psyche.

I always feel like a bit of an outsider myself, but as a working class lad, the system was always against me. The British system itself and then of course all the illnesses that were challenging to me.

I have a sensible set of values that tell me to never lie.

A record company used to be a very good thing, but they ended up soul-destroyingly trapping people in the accounting department. And you couldn't get any further, and the heads of each department were changing all the time, so you couldn't have any permanent relationship within the corporation.

When you come from desperate poverty, and that's exactly what I come from, you know that nonsenses are not to be tolerated. I'm not sure who gains from chaos, but I know it's not the poor folks in the council flats. The politics of vindictiveness is never, ever anything like a solution.

I hate death; it takes people away from you. You're left feeling rudderless.

I'm not limited to categories or genres. Anything human beings come up with fascinates me. If a three-legged idiot like me can dance to it, then that's all well and fine.

Having a birthday cake squashed into your face by young kids? Delicious. I always don a Santa suit at Christmas. Remaining childish is a tremendous state of innocence.

It's quite sad to see how many people I've known over that years that just die off, you know like wilted flowers. Well, there's something to be said for flowers in the dustbin.

I like crazy people, especially those who don't see the risk.

When I write, my brain moves faster than my hands so I'm always trying to picture things.

I could take on England, but I couldn't take on one heroin user.

All the things that you would have thought would have made me a professional A1 criminal... wrong. I decided that was too lazy and easy, and because of the way British society is, quite frankly you were denied an education, so I got one of my own.

We need wealthy dogs off the seats of power. They're taking us back to feudalism and I really don't want that. But I'm very far from being a socialist.

I don't mind dancing the robot if the chemicals are ok, but beyond that the robot will not pull my strings.

Punks in their silly leather jackets are a cliché. I have never liked the term and have never discussed it. I just got on with it and got out of it when it became a competition.

You gotta bear in mind, the youth - and this is just in Britain alone - have nowhere to go in the evenings. They've closed all the social centers. There's not even a patch of grass to kick a ball on.

I don't think there's any such thing as rock n' roll anymore - it's an amalgamation of business interests.

I've never done anything deliberately; I just speak my mind, and that is what I consistently do and will always do in any way shape or form that I can.

I applaud the effort it takes to put a record together.

I don't listen to music. I hate music.

Oscar Wilde turned the world upside down and was able to laugh at it, and hopefully by the time I'm 120 and worn out, that's what I will achieve. I love being alive so much.

If you ever want to know why I'm not on a record label, look at 'The X Factor!' Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions.

If you can sort out why you feel the way you do then you might be in better shape to meet your maker.

There are no limits to where our brains can take us. We are, if there be a God, God's gracious creation.

Obama's dense as a doorbell; not much going on up there - it's a wooden top.

Do not stand in the middle, go to the right or to the left.

If you really want the truth of anything, don't use Wikipedia.

For me people are people, without meaning to sound corny, it's a plain natural fact, music is a universal language and I've always known that and observed that and treated music with great respect accordingly.

What goes on in the world and who's defining what is right or wrong in anything? Is there a place in any of our existence where we need judgment any longer? But we should have empathy towards each other and break away from those categories that politics and religion keep throwing back at us.

Music is escapism from the grim realities of life. But then as soon as you escape into the music, from my point of view, I found I had to deal with the very things that I thought I was running away from. I wanted to hit those problems on the head and resolve them. So they didn't remain as issues in my psyche.

I've always said, I thought the Sex Pistols was more Music Hall than anything else - because I think that really, more truths are said in humour than any other form.

What do you have to do to get people to take an interest? I'm not going to go out and cause a silly sex scandal just to sell a record!

We're Sex Pistols, we ain't fake.

Listen, you know this: If there's not a rebellious youth culture, there's no culture at all. It's absolutely essential. It is the future. This is what we're supposed to do as a species, is advance ideas.

As a human being, I'm work in process.